ends and means

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Just trying to snort up some debate on a time honoured problem in ethics
(and if its already happened maybe point me at the thread!)

In The Present age Soren Kierkegaard said (note savage rhetorical ability):

But, in fact, the modern age of warfare, revolutions, military industrial complexes, mass famine, holocausts and various explosive cissies of modernism ever since seems to have proved almost the opposite.

Although Arendt may have been right about the banality of evil and the life of most remains banal to the point of super banality in 2009 it is still clear that:

Often the most banal ends (third quarter profit margins or making a giant matchstick model of an oil rig) may and are pursued with absolute heroism.

Also supremely bad ends may be pursued through absolutely heroic means (brave Nazis, mafia dons etc)

On the other hand heroic ends may be furthered by an absolutely banal burrowing away rather then “heroic means”

Anyway I guess it boils down to the question of should heroic means be counted as real heroism if the goal is banal or actually evil?

What’s the separation between ends and means as concepts?

is seperating them a useful way of looking at things?

Is not the most evil often done by those who think of themselves as “the good”?

krossie

2

I perceive no such seperation.
Simply, they are both integral features in the complete definition of the other.
The ‘seperation’ (egoic belief in autonomous existence as perceived) is the fall from innocence, from grace. In the classic understanding, ‘enlightenment’ is the regaining of that innocence, a transcendental (transcending the ego) experience of the ‘undivided’, the oneness of existence/the Universe.
From another Perspective, there can be no ‘means’ and ‘ends’ unless in the context of a linear Perspective. There can be no ‘cause and effect’ (means and ends) in a nonlinear context.
So, although the concept of linear means and ends exists, it is a very local phenomenon and not Universal. But, in that context, like everything, it is a real feature of ‘Reality’.

We generally do not think like that; “Is the way that I perceive the world useful?” is not a common question. We usually think that the way that we perceive the world (our moment to moment bit) is “TRUTH” and the way things really are (vs the obvious ‘wrongness’ of differing Perspectives).
In response, I don’t see them as ‘useful concepts’ other than in context. Especially when I perceive things holistically, non-linear. But, when having a linear moment, then things are different.
So, yes and no. (Another (local) distinction.)
What a vast and unimaginable Tapestry this Universe be!

Peace

3

I guess thats me inner Nietzsche how does thinking in a certain way help the thinker thrive!

As to the rest sounds like you have an interesting philosophical perspective though no i didn’t completely get it!

:slight_smile:)

4

I didn’t expect you to, there was a lot on the plate. *__-
If you ever are interested, I’d be happy to elucidate on any particular point in my posts.

5

OK - ignorance, for now though, might be of greater benefit to me.

Meantime evil ends achieved through heroic means - views?

kp

6

“Possessed of courage but devoid of morality, a superior man will make trouble while a small man will be a brigand.” – Confucius

As you said, this goes back to the basics of morality. Most early moral philosophers (Confucius, Socrates, and others) stressed the importance of the unity of the virtues as well as placed an emphasis on the mean, a balance between the different aspects of this singular entity. Courage is a good and desirable thing to cultivate but courage on its own leads to rashness. It needs to be tempered with a sort of learned propriety. But slavishly adhering to propriety for its own sake as opposed to paying attention to why propriety is important leads to becoming an automaton, the sort of banal evil that gets talked about.

Individual virtues (which enable or can be used here as a proxy for means) considered outside of the broader context of both the situation they find themselves in (the ends, ultimately) and of the unified concept of virtue, are meaningless. A black dot can be a period, the dot on the letter “i” or a pupil in a painting. Gotta look at the whole picture.

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Yea agreed for sure - I’d still be a fan of what’s generally termed “virtue (or Aristotlean) ethics” rather then kantian or Utilitarian but like you say its individual “virtues” combined with the wisdom to read the fine grained particularities of a situation - the wisdom to know where and how to use your virtues and when!

Within this argument some “non virtues” like anger, hate, fear may turn into virtues in that they could be harnessed to good ends.

kp

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Or applied in the right way

kp

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There is, and can be, no universal separation for there are no universal interpretations of those concepts. Everything is subjective in terms of perception, so distinguishing between the two is highly dependant on the context in which “ends” and/or “means” are experienced and the values of the individual(s) doing the percieving.

I would agree that there is no such separation as anything is subject to becoming one of the two. I would even go so far as to say that a duality exists, in this respect, as well. In other words, something can be both. Same as “good” and “evil”, since the correlation has already been made - are we not both? Are we not “ends” in that we (people) have made ourselves the central focus of life, and keepers/commanders of our environments? Yet, I would argue that we are quite obviously “means” in that we are used to accomplish something, almost always by and for other people (which, in my opinion, is abhorant).

Kant certainly thought there was a separation - he had a gang of theories involving ‘means to an end’, but I believe the most prevalent of those were the following:

  • Something can exist as an “end in itself”, meaning that the “ends” are conclusions or results brought on by the “means”, but an “end in itself” can simply exist by employing “means” and “ends” as utility. Basically, my impression is that an “end in itself” is the ultimate end, or the end of all ends.
  • People are “ends in themselves” - we create ideas of the results or “ends” we desire, and then create the tools or “means” to reach them. Perhaps it would suffice to say Kant’s “ends in themselves” are the actual creators of “ends” that require “means”
  • People should never be considered “means”. I really like the idea of this concept and thnk the logic is impressive, especially for its age; though, this seems more of an idealistic tenant to his philosophy as the notion of people not being considered ends is almost laughable in today’s culture. A cute notion, but not realistic among men.

I agree, though I’m not so sure they necessarily think themselves “good” as much as they’d like to believe or give the impression to others that they are acting in the interest of “the good”. My statment above was the perfect prescedence to my response here as it reveals the the human perspective of “humanity”. It is the ultimate “end” and, therefore, can be an ultimate “good” or “evil” (the evil I won’t disagree with). We view ourselves as a driving force, observing and controlling all we know for our benefit. We create the “ends” and use the “means”. Even religion would dictate that the world was created for/by (respectively) us, for our use, at our discretion. If we are the greatest of “ends” (ends in ourselves), then the “ends” we create must be the greatest of those ends. We create concepts like “good” and “evil” then place value on them. How could a being so obsessed with “self” and driven toward power and preservation not think itself the ultimate “good”? Even those that believe in the moral, yet outwardly deny it, do not believe themselves “the evil” - anything can be justified subjectively. Thus we create concepts like “redemption”, “justice”, and “remorse” to justify “the bad” and make it seem more temporary than “the good”.

They are one in the same - good and evil. A duality exists in all rational beings, maybe even non-rational. The duality is not a co-existance however, as we like to believe, so much as it is a percieved separation in a single state of being. We define to distinguish, distinguish to understand, and understand to control. What true egoist would not try to separate the two so as to give the ultimate illusion of control - even over that which is most basic and primal in us?

10

Also, I do not know where this idea came from, but the existance of a ‘unified’ virtue does not seem possible. The existance of a unified concept, with universal value, in general is idealistic at best. Personal perspectives in conjunction with influences like culture and society would never allow such a concept to become reality. This is why people, even with adequate consideration of the variables, cannot truely and completely think outside of their individual perspectives and circumstances.

11

Krossie,

Yeah, I’m a big believer in virtue ethics. But the connection between arete and telos can’t be understressed which is why I am confused when people try and abstract virtue ethics from ends.

statiktech,

I’m not sure what you mean. Since the virtues we are discussing exist as a function of human society and human imagination as opposed to in some physical/substantive manner I’m not sure what you mean when discussing their existence or non-existence. It is a hermeneutic process where we have to observe how the individual virtues function in situ while considering the entire system of what we consider to be virtuous in order to have any real understanding of whether the actions taken in the specific circumstance were indeed virtuous.

Charity is generally considered virtuous. Bravery is also generally considered virtuous. Given that, is a mugging virtuous? After all, the person being mugged is giving money to someone less fortunate than themselves (usually, anyway). And mugging someone takes a great deal of courage given all the risks associated with it. Despite that, I think that as a general rule most people would consider mugging a non-virtuous activity (there are, of course, deviations from this general rule – virtue ethics doesn’t work well with hard-and-fast maxims).

The entire Socratic method was designed to tease out examples precisely like this one in order to demonstrate the unity of the virtues.

12

How do virtue or even the socratic method apply to the instinctual, where value, emotion, and “virtue” play no part? Mugging is a good example…

A guy needs food, or let’s even say he’s just greedy and mugs someone. The will to survive, and arguably the will to power, are ultimately protection and preservation of the self. The person being mugged gives up the goodys in accordance with the same will. Premugging there is no virtue - good or bad - associated with the what is to come. Upon being mugged, value is applied to the situation - “I just got mugged - that’s naughty”. Now, let’s suppose you have 2 bystaders and, of course, your mugger who is scared (value dictates mugging = naughty) but proud of his guts and bounty.

  • Mugger = scared but proud
  • Mugged = hurt and angry
  • Bystander1 = horrified and angry
  • Bystander2 = sympathetic and suspicious

All 4 actors have already placed different value on said virtue. Four variations of the same virtue. How can you ever possibly come to any conclusion about the virtue itself without either having witnessed it, or presupposing all details you missed?

My point being that virtue, as with all other concepts, can never be universal. What you are calling virtue is:

limited knowledge of an act + mass amounts of presuppositions + personal perspective of the act

All of that is stuffed into a pious (not you specifically, but those who define “virtue”) tortilla, rolled up, and pooped out at the cash register as a judgement call.

Welcome to Moe’s!

In what cases can you think that the judgement calls regarding virtue have actually been non-virtuous by their own definition? More than I would say otherwise.

Judgement of human beings by other human beings is not considered virtuous, yet that is exactly what it takes to discover and define “virtue” - virtue is vanity with a specific value. Unless you are speaking in a completely abstract manner, and I mean beyond the realm of possibility, I would have to argue that you can never understand if an act is “indeed virtuous”. For what is virtuous if not “virtue”?

13

Given innate moral grammar, I’d say that virtue does play a huge role in the instinctual . . .

So all you are offering here is the banal post-modern critique of virtue ethics? Aside from the problems of post-modernism as a whole, in the case of moral behavior and excellence (both of which fall under the umbrella of virtue ethics) I think that both sociological and neurological research has pretty satisfactorily shown that the sort of Derrida-esque absolute separation between people that you are assuming here simply doesn’t exist.

As for universality vs. unity, well, you are the one who brought post-modernism into the discussion but if we wanted to perform a linguistic analysis on those two terms we would see that while they both contain a similar latin root base “unus” meaning “one” but the two words signify radically different concepts. A universal concept means that it applies to everyone. A unified concept means that seemings disparate elements are in fact parts of a single whole. Within the confines of this thread, I’ve only been talking about the latter of the two concepts while you seem to want to talk about the former. I’m fine with that; indeed, I am more than happy to discuss whether or not morality ought be considered a universal concept. But that isn’t what is being discussed here. At least try and make a segue when presenting a new topic in the conversation as opposed to barging in. It isn’t polite.

14

I sort of get you here – there is definitely the problem that where there’s some sort of amazing Utopian goal – you’ll almost inevitably get loons saying any sacrifice is worth it for the cause/party/god etc.
So really the end becomes meaningless and the actual end is just bad. Maybe people should just concentrate on means and ends will then come about good!

So Socrates was on for a strong separation - But what about the problem above a Mao, a Pol Pot or what ever – the worst often seems to be done in the name of good! OK clearly the above were merely blood crazed dictators

But In some cases these people may really genuinely see themselves as good and, indeed, be charitable and kind etc in their personal lives but do an immense amount of bad – missionaries’ spring to mind!!

kp

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I’m just thinking in the mad means only society I’ve just proposed there would be loads of muggings but they’d all be real friendly, gentle hippy ones …OK its not gonna work!

kp

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In Aristotle’s definition, yes. But you could combine virtue ethics with second-order utilitarianism - maximising the happiness by defining fixed ideals we should all aspire to, rather than fixed rules we should follow. You then lose the problems of telos, although that’s not to say you don’t gain a few in their place.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about, having read GEM Anscombe’s piece on Moral Philosophy (ref - philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/cmt/mmp.html) - I don’t think it’s the answer to the main problems she addresses, of course, but it’s a way of rehabilitating value ethics to a non-objective morality.

17

Might be a slightly better idea but I think everyone has all sorts of utopias in their heads (say libertarian capitalism v libertarian socialism v welfarism v ultra liberalism etc) - Getting society to agree even on their hopes and dreams their maximum projects even an agreed vision of the good seems pretty difficult and, even, undesirable?

kp

18

Well obviously good and evil are not absolutes, and what is perceived by the christian or humanist as evil will in more savage, less polished cultures with less watered down passions be perceived as strength. Where I stand in this I do not know, the ambiguity of reason keeps me from being clear on that. As for the means and ends, when it comes to passions and living them, the means is often the end. In more exalted, successful cases, when an end, a victory, is actually achieved and lasting, the heroism or ferocity in the means is usually the thing that allows the end, the success, to live on by respectful or fearful memory of how it was attained.

19

I think the first problem to overcome is that people know what they don’t like, but not how things should be. They can complain, but they want political leaders with vision to tell them how things should be. Until you have some concrete proposals, you can’t discuss them. And in such a social climate, who’d be arrogant enough to come up with such a plan?

Fortunately, that’s what philosophers are for.

:slight_smile:

20

I do not know upon what basis you are resting this statement, but it makes absolutely no sense to me. You are saying “virtue” - a human idea based on human interpretation of a state of being - influences the instinctual? Seriously?

Would you not agree that the conceptual is built upon the instinctual? If so, I would have to argue the reverse - the instinctual playing a large part in “virtue”. Makes sense to me.

Second, to be clear, I get the little attacks on my grammar and logic (they are subtle, but present). The problem is that I just don’t seem to care; especially since they are coupled with assumptions about which “isms” I am adhereing to or the concepts I consider, which now seem “beneath” you. This online personality of yours is downright laughable. Does the of thought devaluing someone on an online forum, of all places, satisfy something in you? Your vocabulary alone, the intentially inflated language you use, hints at your desire to be regarded as “the intellectual”. That seems to be the real banality here that should be addressed, if any.

I do not subscribe to your concepts of “isms” or whatever other categories you want to push me or my thoughts into. They mean nothing to me, and are absolutely irrelevant to “rational” thought - aside from being able to distinguish modes of thinking in order to make ourselves feel better about them. Whatever floats your boat man; just be careful about assuming you know anything of the conceptual perspectives of another person.

I ask questions and explain things to make sense of them, not to preach - though you seem to be a fan of the mixture. If you felt I was rude or incorrect in what avenues I was persuing, so be it. Don’t read it, don’t reply to it; why couldn’t you have just gone on with your exceedingly important conversation? Every now and again someone like you - rather like the personality you posit online - needs to find justification for his ego. I will not be that justification.

Bottom line is I care nothing about you, your eithics, values, “virtue”, concept of “politeness”, or even myself. Before you get to assuming again, no, I am not a nihilist; my world is one of ego destruction. You are obviously an intelligent individual, but your methods reak of subtle egoism, distain, and fear of uncertainty.

Last, I’m not sure what “absolute separation between people” you are referring to. I said nothing of “seperation”; my focus is more of an incorporation. I can only assume you meant that are under the impression that I am saying the instinctual and conceptual are two very separate, very different things. To clarify, I do think the two are very different, but I don’t believe any real separation exists. The two work together completely and seemlessly - my argument is that the instinctual influences the conceptual more than we often consider. I was just trying to incorporate that variable of primal need into the equation that you are using to understand a human idea. My honest opinion is that people, in general, have already formed the very separation you accuse me of preaching in their minds. The instinctual, and primal, are considered so little yet weigh so heavily on our thoughts and actions.

That seems so ambiguous, as if it can be applied to anything. Is that to say, for example, that all separately defined emotions are but part of the single concept of “emotion”? If so, you can call it “unified” and quote Websters all you want, but a “unified concept” seems little more than an already existant category with a slightly broadened scope - a descriptive term invented by us.